5001/17921
Oh shit. It's ticked over from a round number. Guess I've got to do at least another 4999 of these now. Buckle in. Not convinced I can stay alive that long. But nothing but the Grim Reaper can stop me now. Or his brother the Grumpy Paralyser. Or his sister the Ennui- Filled Coma-provider.
Three full days in Warsaw Indiana and I am feeling like Bill Murray on Groundhog day 53243. I am past the impulse to kill myself or rob banks and now doing my best to learn the piano and carve swans out of ice. Doing pretty well, but still not put together the perfect day yet. I wonder how many almost perfect days he had to do before he hit the mother load.
Anyways, I am not yet on US time and today was awake at 3.15am, a full two hours before my daughter. Still nice to get some me time. With at least another thousand lifetimes to live until I return to the normal world I started thinking about AIOTM, terrifyingly less than a month away now and wondered if I could do some filming while I am away and make some little tourist films for Warsaw Indiana. Partly, in truth, to encourage others to come here and see what I have seen. And to be made to think like I am being made to think. Because although the philosophy here is very different to my own I am laughing at myself as much as at them. Only the idiot sees other nations doing things differently and thinks that they are all lunatics. Anyone with any wisdom at all means the differences mean we are all lunatics. And that the things that we think are normal are just as ludicrous. Everything bad in the world comes from people thinking their people are the best people. And that there's only one way to do something.
So as much as a lazy abortion protests and time travelling presidents make me laugh and give scope for comedy, the unspoken comedy has to be about the lunacy and arrogance of being alive.
I mean I come from a country where people have just willingly voted themselves into a recession and other people are intent on making sure there is no effective opposition, so the privileged and wealthy can carry on as they were and have somehow totally got away with blaming scroungers and immigrants for the situation that they created.
So a man in a nice jumper being mildly fascinated by a dead president's hat is nothing compared to that.
As much as I am in a living Hell that feels like it will never end, I would like to encourage people to visit places that aren't on the tourist trail. Because in a sense the tourist places are like theatres, with local people acting the part of citizens of their nation. But in Warsaw Indiana what you see is what you get. And I have to say that the people, in all their Republican and religious grandeur, are very welcoming and friendly and still haven't shot at me yet, in spite of these blogs. And someone from Warsaw Indiana must have googled Warsaw Indiana this week and come across this stuff.
Tragically my two favourite things about Warsaw, the lazy abortion crosses and the multicoloured and seemingly inconsistent statues are both temporary and if you've already booked your ticket to come here in October then you won't get to see them. I am going to try and visit all the statues. Today we got a good look at the girl with the hoola-hoop. Bizarrely she has a gold face, like some kind of C3PO and if Doctor Who ever comes to Warsaw Indiana then she will definitely come alive and start zapping people with lasers from her eyes. Why did the artist go for a metallic face with this one? I don't know. It's not my place to question Seward Johnson who is quickly becoming my second favourite contemporary artist (after myself and myself 2). The hoola-hoop girl work is called “Attic Trophyâ€, which is bizarre in itself as it creates a back story for the android girl, suggesting she hasn't bought her toy from a shop (even thought they are readily available) but found it in a loft somewhere and considers it booty.
And creeping in on the inside rail as a potential favourite to beat even the Lincoln sculpture is the inaccurately titled “Bunnies Don't Bite†(they fucking do) in which a mother strokes a rabbit, whilst an ogre faced child kneels before her stroking it. I think he might have had his face bitten off by a bunny in the past and had facial reconstruction, which just makes the title of the work more offensive.
“Yuck, Go Fetch†is an interesting work. Firstly because Yuck is an odd and undermining name for a dog (and I presume that it is the name of the dog in the work) but also because when approached from behind the piece looks like the man crouching down to instruct his dog (who is steadfastly sitting still, even though something or someone has just been thrown for him) is a zombie about to feast on the dog's tongue and face. Surely intentional.
At least one thing is a permanent fixture in Warsaw and that's the town museum, housed in the Old Prison. This is worth visiting for the terrifying mannequins alone, but also for the chilling Ku Klux Klan outfit that hangs in the first room you enter. According to Catie's Aunty Margaret who used to work here the building is definitely haunted, but to be honest the dolls and dummies they have got in there are far more frightening than spectres. The best bit was a display called “Oldest T shirt contest†where about five T shirts were hanging, two of them dated 2012 another 2002 and one from 1991, that presumably won this weak competition. I tell a lie, it was the collection of unusual pencils from the Pete Thorn collection, as put together by Don Cox. But there's loads of great and weird items on display and I am pretty sure the mannequins in the school set up were real children that had got lost in the museum and been killed and stuffed (check out the dunce in the corner, though to warn you, anyone who gazes directly at that face will die within a week).
I love Warsaw Indiana and am pretty sure that like Bill Murray, when the chance to escape comes I will decide to live here (spoiler alert).
